History Maker
Snezhana Trofimets became the first athlete in Russian history to win gold medals at both the summer and winter Spartakiads. The fact is that the girl combines performances in athletics and bobsleigh. And if in 2022 she won the shot put competition at a tournament in Chelyabinsk, now she has won the two-man race in a duet with Anastasia Dudkina.
“I’m very glad to be the first. Both medals were equally difficult for me. Although at the Summer Spartakiad I felt more confident, since I had a good lead in the results, and I was the leader for the season. But here the situation is also somewhat similar, we had previously set a track record,” shared the unique athlete, adding that she now plans to switch to athletics and take part in the national championship, which will be held in Moscow in March.
It is noteworthy that Trofimets’ partner, who plays the role of pilot in their pair, came to bobsleigh from equestrian sports.
“Which horse is easier to control, a live one or an iron one? In principle, motor skills are no different, the only difference is in the sensations of piloting. Both here and there you need to keep a tight rein,” Dudkina noted.
Meanwhile, Trofimets is not the only athlete who climbed to the podium in this type of program. Runner Ekaterina Galitskaya took second place together with the famous Nadezhda Sergeeva. Unlike Snezhana, who has already become the national champion in bobsleigh, her colleague is only taking her first steps at a high level.
“I didn’t give up athletics, I just decided to skip the winter season and try myself in bobsleigh. I always dreamed of trying myself in this sport, and once such an opportunity presented itself, I decided to take it. The first time I sat in a bob was only in November, and I liked it. It was a little exciting, but not as scary as I thought at first,” shared the 36-year-old athlete.
In the most prestigious discipline of bobsleigh - men's fours - the crew of Rostislav Gaityukevich celebrated the championship. Together with him on the team were Mikhail Mordasov, Pavel Travkin and Alexey Laptev. Previously, one of the best domestic pilots, in a duet with Laptev, won gold in the two-man races. At the same time, he did not lose to his opponents in any of his eight attempts in two events. In the fours, only Maxim Andrianov’s crew managed to maintain Gaityukevich’s high pace and ended up losing to him by less than a second. The young pilot Kirill Golubev also performed well, whose quartet took third place, losing about two seconds to the leader.
Anniversary gift
On February 18, 2014, Nikolai Olyunin became the first snowboarder in Russian history to win an Olympic medal. He became a silver medalist. And on the eve of a significant anniversary, the athlete gave himself a significant gift by winning the Spartakiad title. On Saturday, Olyunin and Kristina Paul won a convincing victory in snowboard cross among mixed pairs. In addition, a day earlier, Nikolai became vice-champion in the individual discipline.
The silver medalist from Sochi is one of the main idols of hundreds of boys who snowboard in Russia. One of them, 11-year-old Mark from Novosibirsk, before the New Year made a wish at the “Wish Tree” to visit Krasnoyarsk and try out the local ski slopes. And during the Spartakiad, his wish came true: he not only attended the ski acrobatics competition, but also conducted individual training with Olyunin.
Who knows, maybe this particular meeting will become fateful, and at one of the next Olympics Mark will bring a medal in snowboarding to Russia.
Aldoshkina's fifth medal
Ekaterina Aldoshkina nevertheless became one of the most titled athletes of the completed Spartakiad. To the previously won three gold medals in short track speed skating and bronze in speed skating, on the penultimate day of the competition she added another third place - at a distance of 5000 m.
As Ekaterina explained, the decision to compete in two related sports at once was due to the fact that competitions in both were held in her native Chelyabinsk region. Therefore, the athlete decided to please her fellow countrymen and help the region gain points.
“I needed a new challenge, a desire to achieve some heights in speed skating. Yes, now I am more focused on being successful in skating. But to the best of my ability, I don’t forget about short track,” Aldoshkina noted.
As you know, Ekaterina is married to her colleague, speed skater Daniil Aldoshkin, and their family did not remain without victories at the Spartakiad, despite the fact that the athlete did not approach this start in the best physical condition.
“The Spartakiad turned out to be so crumpled for me due to illness, due to which I missed some of my main disciplines. It only went away towards the end, at the mass start, and I’m glad that everything turned out so well. I think that I accomplished the maximum task at this stage,” noted Daniil, who distinguished himself in the mass start and team race.
Sergei Trofimov also won two awards of the highest standard at the tournament. To his first place at the 5000 m distance, he added a victory at a distance twice as long. In addition, the Krasnoyarsk resident has two more silver medals - in the team race and in the 1500-meter race.
According to the skater, he prepared for these competitions for a long time in Belarus, since in Kolomna, where the national team athletes train, the time allocated for training does not suit him. And Sergey arrived in Chelyabinsk ahead of time - on January 7th.
“I was skating on this ice, skating rink, temperature, because it’s cool here,” Trofimov noted.
Final gold
The last set of Spartakiad awards was played out in women's hockey. In the final, which took place on Sunday on the ice of the Chelyabinsk Traktor Arena, teams from the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Bashkortostan competed. The former defeated the squad from the Moscow region at the previous stage, and the latter sent the St. Petersburg women to fight for bronze.
And the decisive match turned out to be truly dramatic. In the first period, the rivals made ten shots on target each other, but only one reached the goal - its author was Siberian Oksana Mitrofanova.
In the second segment of the game, the Bashkir athletes rushed to recoup and unleashed a flurry of attacks on Daria Grezden’s possessions. The 19-year-old goalkeeper of Krasnoyarsk Biryusa was able to fend off 17 shots and still kept the goal intact. But nine hits on target from her team’s forwards also did not lead to a goal, and the opponents entered the third period with the same minimum score of 1:0.
The pressure from the hockey players from the chasing team continued, but they were unable to score. And nine minutes before the end they completely missed the second goal. But less than two minutes later the Bashkirs brought the intrigue back into the game, dampening the score. However, they were no longer able to squeeze out more, and the team from the Krasnoyarsk Territory brought the 11th gold award to the regional team.
The top scorer of the tournament was Mitrofanova with eight goals. She beat Ksenia Tyurina from the Bashkortostan team in additional indicators.
“There were a lot of spectators here, the atmosphere was cool, fewer people attended the WHL, and there was a sense of responsibility. I think the tournament should be held in one place, games one after another. In the WHL you play three days in a row with the same team, anyone can win. And then there’s one match, the one who wants it the most wins,” the hockey player shared her thoughts.
The struggle of two capitals
The main fight for first place in the team competition of the Spartakiad, as expected, unfolded between the teams of the two capitals. In the first days of the tournament, the team from the banks of the Neva was in the lead, but gradually the Muscovites eliminated the gap and took the lead.
Before the final day of the competition, the Moscow team had 15 gold medals, and St. Petersburg had 13, and the intrigue about who would become first lasted almost until the very end. Thus, the St. Petersburg team added three victories to their collection on Sunday. Evgenia Krupitskaya won the ski marathon, Irina Umnitsyna and Andrey Fedorov won the ski mountaineering relay, and Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Gallyamov had no equal in pair skating.
However, Moscow athletes did not remain in debt. Elizaveta Agafoshkina became the best in speed skating mass start, just 0.07 seconds ahead of Elena Eranina from the Moscow region, and Mikhail Nazarov climbed to the top step of the podium in ski jumping. These two awards were already enough for Moscow to achieve an early triumph, but Adelia Petrosyan put a bright point in this dispute, who brought the capital its 18th gold. And in total the team has 51 medals (18 - 19 - 14). St. Petersburg has 39 awards in total (16 - 8 - 15), and the Moscow region closes the top three with 34 places on the podium (12 - 11 - 11).